The Door That Demands Two

[Item acquired: ‘Unknown Identification Tag’.]

The moment I stood up, the system announced the item acquisition.

After checking the item’s name, I held my hand out to Won-gyeong and said,

“Let me take another look for a second.”

Won-gyeong handed the item back as if to say go ahead.

An identification tag?
Then does what’s written on it contain information about that monster?

The language was unfamiliar, but knowing it was an identification tag made it feel like I could infer something from it.

[[TIP! Careful observation is the beginning of everything. If you look closely, you may learn something.]]

[Observing ‘Unknown Identification Tag’.]

[Observation success rate increases with focus.]

[Observing.]

“Doya?”

Won-gyeong’s voice calling my name sounded distant.

I stared at the tag without even breathing.

The unknown characters filled my vision, then floated up into the air.

As I blankly watched, the characters slowly began to change shape.

[Observation successful! Portions of the content are translated into the player’s language!]

[‘Unknown Identification Tag’

!#@ Mountain-type Organic Entity

No reproductive function

Rank D (Used for #% purposes)

This entity is the property of !#$% ** ]

The previously unreadable text partially translated into a language I understood.

The contents were….

The system had just classified the creature as A-rank, but this tag listed it as D-rank.

That meant the rank wasn’t a measure of combat power.

‘Then what kind of rank is it?’

The latter part was still untranslated.

I couldn’t tell what it was used for, or where it belonged.

Were all monsters that appeared in rifts like this?

Frowning, I stared down at the tag.

The characters on it were still unreadable, but opening the system allowed me to review the contents again.

Still frowning, I said to Won-gyeong,

“Doesn’t this look like some kind of ID tag?”

Reading something that clearly wasn’t a human language would normally be suspicious.

I spoke as if I were just guessing.

Won-gyeong took the tag again and briefly agreed that it could be.

Unlike me, he didn’t seem particularly bothered by it.

The difference between predator and prey was obvious.

Won-gyeong had the power to ignore small things like this.

Watching him nod dismissively, I tightened my grip on the tag.

“I’ll keep this.”

“It’d be better to throw it away. Parts of monsters tend to attract other monsters.”

“…Still, it’s bothering me.”

Won-gyeong clearly wanted to discard it, but when I muttered while holding it tightly, he relented.

“If you really want to keep it, I’ll carry it. That’s safer.”

So that I wouldn’t hold it myself, Won-gyeong opened his palm and held it out.

After hesitating, I placed the tag in his hand.

I had a gut feeling, the instinct of prey, that this was something important.

After obtaining the tag, we encountered about eight more monsters.

They were all solitary individuals, all A-rank or higher.

Won-gyeong dealt with every single one without his breathing so much as faltering.

He really was more monstrous than the monsters.

And yet.

Something about Won-gyeong began to feel off.

All this time, even immediately after encountering monsters, he’d remained calm—but now that calm was cracking.

“What’s wrong?”

Right after turning a corner in the maze, he suddenly pulled me into his arms.

There was no sound, and the system issued no warning.

There was no apparent danger nearby, yet Won-gyeong held me tightly and wouldn’t let go.

He didn’t explain why.

I tried shifting my body a few times to break free, but even though he didn’t seem to be exerting force, I couldn’t escape his grip.

Feeling the overwhelming difference in strength again, I peeked upward.

Having my head pressed to his chest felt suffocating.

I wondered how long he planned to hold me like this.

Won-gyeong stared straight ahead with an unusually serious expression.

“What’s ahead?”

When I tried to turn my head toward where he was looking, Won-gyeong grabbed the back of my head and quickly turned me back toward him.

As if there were something I absolutely must not see.

Holding me like that, he muttered with a grim face,

“We need to go back and find another path.”

Before Won-gyeong could finish speaking, I heard something move.

A faint sound that hadn’t yet reached his ears.

It sounded like… a wall shifting.

‘Wait… it really sounds like the wall is moving.’

The sound was coming from behind us—from the path we’d just taken.

It was getting closer, still faint, but unmistakable.

If we were going to turn back, I needed to say so now.

But how was I supposed to explain that I could hear walls moving?

Claiming it was just intuition wouldn’t work.

We’d never encountered moving walls anywhere else in this maze.

And this was the path even Won-gyeong had stiffened at.

We needed to turn around before the path was blocked.

I was about to speak up despite the risk of suspicion when the system appeared.

As if it sensed my hesitation, it displayed a message meant to calm me.

[[TIP! This route is the lowest-risk escape route in the current rift.]]

…Huh?

Lowest risk?

For the first time, Won-gyeong’s judgment conflicted with the system’s.

Won-gyeong clearly thought this path was dangerous, but according to the system, the other routes would be even worse.

In that case, rather than turning back and wasting time only to face greater danger, it might be better to stay put and let the wall seal the retreat.

It was also the more rational choice if I wanted to avoid exposing my abnormal hearing.

I ignored the increasingly close sound and stayed quietly in Won-gyeong’s arms.

Still staring ahead with a deeply furrowed brow, Won-gyeong spoke in a low voice,

“Whatever happens, don’t look back. We’re turning around.”

I couldn’t hear anything alarming at all, so I didn’t understand why he was reacting so strongly.

If anything, his attitude made me more curious.

I wanted to look back immediately, but since I’d probably have to soon anyway, I forced myself to wait.

Just as I answered that I understood, Won-gyeong suddenly spun around.

Without a word, he wrapped his arm tightly around my waist and my vision lurched.

He’d hoisted me under his arm and started running.

My hair streamed back, but only for a moment.

He moved so fast it was hard to process—but the rift showed no mercy.

The path behind us was sealed off.

Bang!

A series of deafening crashes followed.

The entire retreat route was blocked.

“…Ha.”

Won-gyeong let out an irritated breath and set me down.

The way he pressed a hand to his head while staring at the blocked wall made his frustration obvious.

He kicked the ground a few times in irritation, then sighed.

Every path behind us was gone.

From here on out, there was only forward.

After a long sigh, he spoke to me as if resigned.

“Looks like we have no choice but to keep going.”

“What’s ahead that made you want to turn back?”

Instead of answering, he lightly tapped my shoulder, signaling me to look forward.

The moment I followed his cue, I understood why he’d been holding me.

A massive door stood before us.

A lavish, ornate door embedded unnaturally into a dead-end wall.

That alone wasn’t the problem.

Rifts were full of strange phenomena; this could be one of them.

The problem was what was written on it.

[Only one pair of fertile male and female may pass.]

I narrowed my eyes and read it again.

‘Fertile.’

‘One pair.’

Those two words stuck in my mind.

Won-gyeong seemed to feel the same.

The moment we stepped through that door, something coercive would happen.

That intuition would soon become reality.

Still.

“It doesn’t seem that hard to pass. Why did you want to turn back?”

I asked calmly.

Objectively speaking, the conditions to pass were absurdly simple.

If we were lucky, that door might even lead straight to the exit.

If not—well, it still didn’t seem immediately fatal.

When I showed no sign of agitation, Won-gyeong seemed to assume I hadn’t understood the meaning of the text.

He looked like he wanted to explain something, lips parting, then closing again.

With a sigh, he spoke—but not about the wording itself.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a door like this in a rift. It could be the exit… but it’s more likely not. And after passing through, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

He hesitated slightly on the word “safety.”

Won-gyeong clearly didn’t want to go through that door.

I glanced back at the wall blocking our retreat.

He didn’t seem to have noticed yet, but the walls were inching closer.

The faint sound of movement echoed repeatedly.

If we stood here debating, we’d be crushed flat.

“But we can’t just stay here.”

I said, staring at the narrowing walls.

When Won-gyeong followed my gaze, he finally noticed them too.